


Foray in the Forest: The Formation of the Freedom Fighters

by JayMossbeard



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Animals, Archery, Awkward Dates, Bonding, Broken Families, Colonialism, Coming of Age, Environmentalism, First Dates, Forests, Freedom Fighters, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heist, Internal Conflict, Meddling Kids, Poetry, Pre-Canon, Prequel, Revolution, Singing, Teambuilding, Travel, World Travel, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2020-10-13 23:30:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20590919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayMossbeard/pseuds/JayMossbeard
Summary: While traveling through town, a young girl, Smellerbee, teams up with the renegade boys Jet and Longshot to deal a devastating blow against the Fire Nation, and by doing so, chart a course that will determine the rest of their lives.





	1. Chapter 1

Water

Earth

Fire

Air

Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation ruthlessly wiped out the Air Nomads and launched a brutal assault on the Earth Kingdom. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years have passed, and the Fire Nation is nearing victory in the war. Some people believe that the Avatar was never reborn into the Air Nomads and that the cycle is broken. Only one thing is clear: this fight will be our own.


	2. Little Rebellions

The soft sound of children whispering filled the dark, dreary dormitory. They sat, huddled together into a circle by the window, where the soft, blue moonlight let them see each other. Even though they whispered, their hushed tone wasn’t enough to mask their dread.

Jianjun’s eyes cracked open. It was unusually early and too dark. He wiped away the crust under his eyes and sat up on his bed. He yawned and surveyed the others. About half the room was up, about 20 or 25 in all. His curiosity, though muted from exhaustion, drove him over to investigate. As he got out of bed, he brushed his long, unkempt hair with one hand and set the other hand on his waist. He loomed over the crouched children and saw one, a boy about his age, eight, with shaggy black hair and unwashed clothes, holding a handful of straw, pulled from their mattresses. To no one in particular, Jianjun asked, “what’s going on?”

Next to the ring leader, a stout child, also about eight, and with long, brown hair, tied up in a bun replied, “Uncle Ho isn’t back yet. We’ve decided that one of us is going to ask for more food today, and we are drawing straws to decide who.”

Jianjun didn’t say anything. He knew as well as the others the situation was bad. The last of their provisions from Ho had run out yesterday. If Ho wasn’t back with food by now, they’d have to subsist on the muck that the orphanage gave them, which was basically starvation. It wasn’t like Ho to be this late, and Jianjun felt his heart pound a little harder as he pondered the vast possibilities that could be keeping him.

Each of them carefully inspected the handful of straw. The first child to pick was slow and inspected the different options. He must’ve taken five minutes, picking one and putting it back and picking a new one before finally settling on a different one.

Jianjun hated the orphanage’s gruel as much as they did, but they were so notoriously strict he hadn’t considered asking for more. The odd one out would be risking punishment if the administrators were offended; of course, if they weren’t, then the others would be able to do the same. They might not like it, but they wouldn’t be hungry.

The second child began examining the straw. As she drew her finger around her choice, Jianjun began to see that Ho, had helped them feel human. He saw now that they would be reduced to animals without him. The girl bit her bottom lip and chose.

The third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh child, and so on were picking their straw now and Jianjun’s feelings crystallized. Finally, it came time for them to measure and like a flash of lightning, Jianjun realized what he had to do.

“Wait!” He interjected.

The children turned their downcast faces to Jianjun, unsure of what he had to say. Then he plucked the last piece of straw out of the losing child’s hand and said, “I’ll do it.”

He put the piece of straw between his lips. Ho had been a fixture of their lives ever since he began providing food for them, but they had begun to take him and his generosity for granted. Now they had begun to look up to him.

Dawn’s first light shown over the horizon and bells rang out to wake up the remaining children. Like circus animals, trained through repetition, some even waking up just before the bells, they clamored out of bed and put on their clothes and sandals before getting into a single file line by the door. Jianjun cursed the monotony that made them into dogs. He filed into the line, nearly last, and played with the straw between his teeth as they slowly marched down the stairs and into the Mess Hall.

The Mess Hall was big and on the verge of collapse. It had thirty tables, each seating six, lined in columns. The tables were old, shabby, worn, and barely holding together. The benches that they sat on were likewise, but also rotting and were completely cramped and overcrowded.

The line of children slowly journeyed down the stairs and arched at a table that handed out bowls, a pair of chopsticks and a serving of tasteless noodle soup. Jianjun collected his bowl, his chopsticks and was served his noodles from the chef. The chef was a tall man with long, greasy black hair, an engorged stomach and a filthy white apron covering his expensive-looking purple clothes.

_ You can’t get fat eating the gruel they’re feeding us_, Jianjun thought. He had nothing to prove it, but Jianjun could see the machinations of The Orphanage like daylight. He saw money changing hands from The Factory Bosses to The Orphanage Administrators; frugal in accommodating the children while they spent on themselves like there was no tomorrow. _They feed us scraps so that they can get fat, eating like kings_.

There was a perk to being last in line: while those in the front received copious amounts of broth at the top of the soup container, those who were last in line received heartier portions. Jianjun sat at his spot at the table and, removing the straw from his mouth, ate. The broth was flavorless like lukewarm water and the noodles were so delicate they crumbled if you tried to pick them up. Jianjun stirred the noodles so that the broth became more of a paste. No one was able to actually use the chopsticks provided to them, and if held the wrong way would give them splinters. That chopsticks were issued at all felt like a personal insult to him.

The administrators were having soup also, but it wasn’t anything as gnarly as what they had to eat. It had actual noodles in it, delicious, salty broth with pig-chicken and different vegetables. Not only did they eat larger, but they also dressed decadently too. They wore fabric with outlandish colors like purple, orange, gold, and were decked out in rings, necklaces, and piercings that shimmered in the light. The Chief Administrator, Chenglei, wore red clothes inlaid with intricate and ancient designs in yellow, symbolizing good luck. They ate and laughed with each other while the rest of the room was asking if the person next to them wanted their noodle paste.

Jianjun slurped his bowl down like the others and looked down the aisle. The other children were picking up their bowls and licking the little residue left on them, making sure to consume every drop. Jianjun remembered his resolve and, plucking the bedside straw back into his mouth, stood up from his table. All eyes were on him now. The children were unallowed to get up until they were expressly commanded to do so, and the staff, who hated children, were particularly anxious to deal with one. Jianjun sat and carefully considered his words. _Better to flatter them, than to inflame them_, Jianjun thought.

With every child, silent as death, Jianjun, with soldierly purpose, strode to the front, aware of the eyes following him. He held his bowl in both hands, made eye contact with the staff, and removing the straw from his mouth, spoke as mannered and calmly as he could, “I loved breakfast today. I was hoping, I could have some more, please.”

Jianjun resented every word, and if it were not his duty, he would never have uttered such a bald-faced lie. _Politeness never hurt anyone_, he thought, placing the straw back between his teeth, but the staff, except for the chef who’s face let slip a tiny wrinkle of a grin, didn’t take it this way.

The six administrators sat at their table, unamused. _Who does this whelp think he is,_ they thought to themselves. The four that remained silent frowned at Jianjun and folded their arms. The two others began huffing and puffing, as if his request was so unreasonable, he should have been ashamed to have even thought it.

Chenglei, the Chief Administrator, finally answered him, “AH! You can never win with these children! All I hear is griping from you all day and all night. ‘Our beds aren’t soft enough! We don’t get enough sleep! We work too hard! Our bath time isn’t long enough!’ It never ends, and now you think you can win us over with a couple of polite words. If more food is what you want, then you are going to have to work for it!”

Then Chenglei retrieved a whistle from his pocket and blew it, signaling the children to get up from their tables and form a line. Chenglei grabbed Jianjun by his wrist and began walking him down and out through the exit.

Adjacent to the orphanage was a factory. The majority of men in the town worked as loggers, carpenters, or store owners, but the Factory, which formerly produced a meager number of weapons for the Earth Kingdom, had become the epicenter of the town under the colonial thumb of the Fire Nation. It was guarded by a single gate, with cheap wooden fencing all around it. The Factory was constructed three stories high and entirely from brick. When the Fire Nation took over, they refurbished it with improved ventilation, but removing all the windows. Every time Jianjun saw that brick structure, he became nauseous.

With the children in tow, they marched outside the complex, feeling the brisk air on their faces. Jianjun led the way with Chenglei’s tight grip around his wrist. Soon, they arrived at the gate. Jianjun played with the piece of straw between his lips as Chenglei unlocked the gate.

They passed through the courtyard and entered the factory through two sets of doors. Inside was a massive system of furnaces, deposits of coal and ore, vast arrays of molds for different weapons and armor plating, cooling pools of water, and tools to do everything from pouring, carrying, hammering, and shaping. Since it had no windows, it was lit by a combination of lanterns, and crystals which emitted a ghostly green light.

Men toiled away here and thanks to the Fire Nation’s refurbishing, they had begun to get sick and die early, inhaling dust and other particles. Lavatory breaks were rarely allowed, meaning men had to go where they stood. Tools and equipment were rarely cleaned, making the ghastly workplace conditions unsanitary also.

The Factory Supervisor, Mr. Zhang, maneuvered between the rank and file of the factory workers, inspecting the productivity of the workers, and ensuring that they met their daily quotas. He was a harsh, hardened man, adorned in crimson and black cloth, and his face was cleanly shaven. It happened that he turned his head at just the wrong time for one worker, who stopped to wipe the sweat away from his brow. The Supervisor retrieved his whip from his waist and jaunted over like a raging Goat-Bull.

“Who told you that you could stop working,” Mr. Zhang interrogated. “I pay you to work and work is what I’m going to get. I’m of half a mind to correct the behavior right here and now if I can expect this to continue, or to fire you on the spot.” As soon as the worker saw the lash he exclaimed, “Sorry sir! I will get back to work right away.” He did exactly that, and worked ever more intensely, letting his sweat drip and sting his eyes for Mr. Zhang to see.

Chenglei, still clutching Jianjun’s wrist, smiled glibly at The Supervisor’s disciplinary attitude. Then Chenglei approached Mr. Zhang, looking to enlist his help. Unlike his outburst at Jianjun, he addressed Mr. Zhang with poise.

“Excuse me, Mr. Zhang, I need to speak to you about something.”

Mr. Zhang, The Factory Supervisor, squinted at the man, hoping to discern what kind of thing he could possibly want from him today. When he saw Chenglei holding onto Jianjun’s wrist, his patience had already begun running low. Reluctantly, he greeted Chenglei.

“Well, that would depend on what kind of thing you’re going to ask about. I run a workplace, not a daycare center.”

Chenglei ignored Mr. Zhang’s cheek and responded, “No, absolutely not. I noticed how you dealt with that worker of yours and thought I’d ask if you could organize something similar for this little man here. Unfortunately, he has chosen to be insolent, and so I seek a way to discipline him good and right.”

Mr. Zhang softened his gaze and addressed the Chenglei’s concerns. “I’m sure I can help you then, but I have many duties while overseeing the efficiency of this factory and won’t be able to see to him all day. Rest assured though, I will have him under constant watch and constant scrutiny.”

They thanked each other and passed off Jianjun. Mr. Zhang grabbed the piece of straw from Jianjun’s mouth and cast it away before calling a henchman over to his side and tasking him to monitor Jianjun at all times. The Henchman was average height, clean and scrawny, clearly not a worker like everyone else.

“What should I have him do?” Asked the henchman.

“Have him shovel coal into the big furnace.” Mr. Zhang replied.

“As you wish.”

Then the henchman took Jianjun beyond the main room and into a separate, closeted space. Inside was a furnace unlike any other. It was enormous, with an opening like the mouth of some kind of eldritch monster which reached across the entire hall, and with pipes running up, across the ceiling and into the other rooms, like veins. It resembled less of a furnace and more of some kind of horrific leviathan. For any person to feed it all day required a herculean effort. Other full-grown, brawny men were toiling, shirtless, covered in sweat and soot, and looked down at him sympathetically between each heap of coal. Jianjun understood right away, this was less about work or discipline than it was to torture.

The lackey released Jianjun and directed him to shovel. The shovel itself was almost too big for a child to lift and to go at a steady pace required strength and fortitude that Jianjun didn’t have. He picked it up and shoveled as frequently and steadily as he could, but each time The Henchman would tell him that he was not shoveling fast enough. It wasn’t long when his face and hands turned jet black.

The heat from the furnace scorched Jianjun’s skin and parched his mouth. His sweat evaporated and salt would flake from his torched skin. His body grew tired and his head cooked next to the flame. The Henchman sat comfortably against the back wall and drank from his canteen so profusely that water spilled from his lips and soaked the floor. Jianjun stopped shoveling for a moment and thought to ask for water, but as he turned to do so, The Lackey gestured with his finger for Jianjun to continue without. Jianjun could feel his head beginning to thump like his own heart, and as he went to pick up the shovel, his mind and his muscles finally gave out. There, he collapsed. His eyelids were too heavy to hold open any longer and darkness enveloped him. He couldn’t tell if he was dying or sleeping.

* * *

The sun rose the next day and it's golden light woke up a young traveler encamped on the outskirts of town. She had slept in a thin leather tent, apt for keeping out the cold night air, and more expensive than an ordinary Earth Kingdom peasant could afford. It was pitched under a tree and on a field of yellow grass with a creek not far away. As rays of sunlight permeated through the cracks of her tent, she grasped her necklace, feeling the emblazoned image of the scaled eagle, an old family heirloom.

Ying stretched her arms, yawned, and sat up while searching through her bags for something to eat. She feared she had exhausted her food, having overindulged on her rations in the past, and after one look through her bags, her suspicions were confirmed. The remnants of her food were a handful of bread crumbs and hard uncooked grains of rice at the bottom of one of her many bags. Her stomach growled and she set aside her reservations and shook the last morsels out of the bag and into her mouth. It didn’t sate her appetite, but she believed she could reach the town before noon, and she could buy food.

Ying set about to unpitch her tent and pack up her things. As she set them away in her pack, she reached for her pouch of water but found she had drunk most of it last night. She wasn’t dying of thirst, but she was thankful nonetheless that she camped beside the creek. She finished her packing, put on her cone hat and set out to refill her reservoir.

As she walked, she heard a strange-sounding squawk from behind her. Quickly, she unsheathed two knives held under her pack and spun around to meet the threatening sound. Ying scanned the terrain but didn’t find anything. She noticed a bird sitting on the tree she was camped under and attributed the sound to it before putting her knives away and sang a song she learned from other travelers as she walked.

> We come from far and wide
> 
> To find a place where we'll reside
> 
> And though the walls are high
> 
> Reaching up towards the sky
> 
> Our home is in Ba Sing Se
> 
> We didn't come from much before
> 
> Growing grain in days of yore
> 
> But there's a place of milk and honey
> 
> Where we can make lots of money
> 
> And that place is Ba Sing Se
> 
> We have had a hard life
> 
> worrying the kids with our strife
> 
> But all that is going to change
> 
> And our kids will think it's strange
> 
> When they marry in Ba Sing Se
> 
> We all came destitute
> 
> From a war that's absolute
> 
> But we'll find a place of peace
> 
> Where we can feast on fat geese
> 
> Because there's no war in Ba Sing Se

When she arrived at the creek, there was an old wooden bridge beside it. The wood which used to have polish to protect it from the elements had not been maintained and subsequently began to rot. It had also been recently covered in graffiti. Slogans and messages had been laid for travelers to discover. “Death to the Ashmakers.” “Fire Nation Swine.” “Colonizers, get out!” In fact, the bridge was so neglected that a hive of peculiar bees had begun making a home under the railing.

The bees had brown and black fur sprouting from their exoskeleton, small, beady eyes, six legs and a menacing curled tail like a scorpion. Ying had never seen them before, but she knew that of all the creatures she had seen on her journey, that these were the worst. Before refilling her water, she pulled out an old notebook and began to sketch the animal on the pages, as well as the home they were constructing. Above her sketch, she wrote “Scorpion-Bee,” and included the date and location of her sighting. Ying closed the journal and smiled at having found another creature. She was thankful she decided to start this hobby which broke up the tedium of her daily hike.

Ying refilled her water and set out over the bridge. The yellow grass began turning into a pleasant green and the flatland gave way to beautiful rolling hills. Eventually, she began to make out the shape of buildings in the distance. The town seemed to be nestled between two hills and a lush, green forest to its South. She walked a good distance and thought to herself that this sight was a good omen for her, but when she saw the town, her hopes were dashed.

A wooden gate welcomed all who wished to enter, but where there would normally be the symbol of the Earth Kingdom, that of a square enshrined at the center of a circle, was instead overlaid with a red banner, atop of which was a black, three-pronged flame, _The Fire Nation_. Ying closed her eyes and sighed.

“No.” She said to herself. “They weren’t supposed to be here.” Ying clenched her fists and remembered her resolve. She pressed on through the gate.

The town was quaint for The Fire Nation, almost unchanged from its Earth Kingdom culture except for the addition of the Fire Nation banners covering the old insignias. The town was probably easy to occupy because it had no wall or fence. The road split the town down the middle, stretching from the East, where Ying was entering, to the West.

People lived and built their homes on the Northside and went to work on the Southside. It looked like the main place of work inside the town was a gigantic brick Factory. The Factory had an out of place two-story manor directly behind it. The manor had chipping green paint, rotting foundations and sat in the center of a courtyard of overgrown grass and untrimmed shrubbery. It resembled a ghost house more than anything else, and Ying couldn’t imagine who could possibly be living inside it.

Making the town even further quaint was one giant barn-like edifice in the housing district, with red paint making it stick out, almost literally, like a sore thumb next to all the green buildings. Ying speculated that it was some kind of storage building. She winced at the number of elephant-rats she saw around it.

Besides trade, it looked like everyone else in the town made their living by logging and carpentry. Many of the men walking around had either enormous builds or were average size, but had missing hands and fingers.

Dotting the sides of the buildings were a multitude of recruitment posters with a half dozen different designs. Ying stopped to look at them. One poster featured a woman flexing her arm, dressed in the Fire Nation Army Body Dress Uniform, and on the poster read, “We can only win with strong girls like you!” Another poster showed The Army, with men and women at the position of Attention with bold words reading, “To guard peace around the world is our Profession!” Yet another poster featured a soldier eating a roast turtle-duck and exclaiming, “I never ate better before joining the Fire Nation Army! Join like me and get benefits too!” The last poster pictured a man with a missing hand, sitting down with a doctor who was giving him a hook. It read, “Let the Fire Nation Army Doctor _HOOK_ you right up. Join the Fire Nation Army today for world-class medical care!” Ying marveled at them. Her face turned red like a hot cinder and grimaced. As she grit her teeth, she remembered why she was there. She closed her eyes and took a breath in and back out, calming herself and remembering to hide her exuberant anger.

Ying’s estimate was correct, she had arrived at around noon, and now she could stave off her hunger little longer. She found a decent looking store and entered it looking for food. She filled her basket with flatbread, rice, beans, noodles, salt, as well as some fresh fruit and meat. She brought her things to the counter in the back of the store and alerted the owner who was dozed off, probably while waiting for customers. He was an old man, balding, and whose remaining hair and long, thin beard were completely white.

Ying held out her Earth Kingdom money and said, “I’m a traveler and I didn’t realize I was heading into a Fire Nation Colony. Can I still pay with this?”

The Owner was reluctant to tell her and his eyebrows sagged as he studied her. Ying was wearing a green tunic, typical for most people in the Earth Kingdom, with short brown hair obscured by her cone hat, appeared to be only around 8 years old, and marveled when he realized the pack she carried was almost as big as she was, but finally, he confessed to her. “Earth Kingdom money was phased out about a year ago.”

Ying retracted her hand.

“I’m sorry, but I can only accept Fire Nation coins now. The whole town stopped accepting Earth Kingdom money about a year ago. To tell you the truth, you look rather young for a traveler, I’d give you the groceries for free, but the Fire Nation has doubled taxes again and my shop is barely making it. Maybe you can find another traveler who needs Earth Kingdom money.”

Her face sunk, and she stared at the floor. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll be back if I find anything.”

Ying left her basket and stepped out of the store dismayed. She stood by the side of the store and began asking passersby if they wanted Earth Kingdom money. The answer was always the same.

Her stomach gurgled and growled at her. The sun was beginning to wind down. Ying never found shame in herself, but she thought finally she would have to deject herself to begging. She took off her backpack, planted herself on the ground and held out her hat.

“Spare change? Spare change? Any spare money for a poor traveler? Any loose change?”

Her heart chaffed as she said these words. In the past, she never wondered about where beggars had come from or how they began rooting around in the trash. She only knew that they looked and smelled hideously, and that her parents had been grooming her for a life starkly contrast to that. _If only it could have remained that way,_ she thought.

Ying hadn’t collected a single coin before a Fire Nation soldier approached her. The soldier was short and had long brown hair, tied into a topknot, but one distinct to the Earth Kingdom as opposed to the typical fashion of the Fire Nation. He was clearly an Earth Kingdom citizen and NOT a Fire Nation one. Ying’s stomach churned as she realized this betrayal.

“You need to leave,” he told her. “You’re disturbing the peace and impinging on this shop owner’s business.” And he gestured toward the shop that she sat by.

The traitor continued, “You should be ashamed of yourself. I can tell from your garb that you are no poor person. You didn’t have to struggle like I did before I joined the Army. Go find somewhere else to leach.”

Ying took her hand and felt the ornament around her neck. She remembered a time when she was never in want of anything, long before The Fire Nation corrupted everything. Tears seeped from her eyes. She wiped them away, picked up her things and left.

She wandered throughout the town, hoping someone left a morsel of food she could scavenge. She saw the sun turning orange, and felt her stomach growl for food. She remembered she still had a place she needed to be, and it was getting harder to carry her backpack without a meal. Ying thought hard about the risks before arriving at a decision. She balled her hands into fists and cast aside any last reservations she had. She would have to steal.

She wouldn’t rob the person from the store, instead, she looked for someone who would be easier to run from. Ying entered an alleyway with two columns of street vendors. They had umbrellas and green linen covering their stands where they sold different things like fruit, vegetables, bread, and meat. The alley was densely populated, with some people just walking down the street, looking for groceries, and others sitting down at small tables and eating. She eyed a stand selling cooked Comodo-Chicken and looked for paths of escape through the horde of shoppers. She checked where the soldiers stood. Her hands began to sweat, thinking about if she could even get away in time. Would a civilian try to stop her? She would have to grab enough for the next leg of the journey.

Ying concentrated, closed her eyes and breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. She opened her eyes, ready, and reached for the handle of her knife. She palmed it, but as she stepped forward, she felt something or someone crash into her shoulder. All at once, she lost her balance and she fell, face first, hurtling toward the ground like an asteroid. She let out a small, startled scream as she fell and quickly threw out her arms and only ended up scuffing her hands as she hit the ground.

Ying growled as she recovered from the scrape. She got up, from all fours, and furiously searched for the person who had knocked her over. It didn’t take long to find the perp. He was standing idly by and didn’t bother helping her or even continuing on his way. The person was another boy, about her age by the looks of it. He wore a red tunic and had long unkempt hair, he held a piece of straw between his teeth and his face and hands were jet black from coal.


	3. Trouble in the Trees

“Hey!” Ying said angrily, throwing up a fist and looked up to find a kid looking full of himself. “Watch where you’re going!”

He responded in a tone as cool as ice. “Oh, I assure you, I know exactly where I’m going.”

Ying stood up, got her bearings and frowned hard at him, taking no liking to his smug attitude. “Are you looking for a fight?”

The boy stood in the middle of the alley and began to approach her again while lowering his volume. “Don’t take it personally, I just didn’t want you to get caught doing that… thing.”

Ying’s heart skipped, “You have no idea what I was doing!”

“Don’t I?” The boy displayed the knife that she had been carrying before. “I saw you staring down that food stand like a hungry Tiger-dillo. I can infer the rest.”

The boy returned the knife to her. “Fine, what do you want,” she asked.

The boy softened his bravado and tried to speak frankly and sympathetically. “I saw the way that soldier talked to you. He was way out of line.” Then he turned out his pockets. “I don’t have any money, but I know some people who are hungry like you. I think if we work together, we both stand a better chance of not getting caught. You in?”

He extended his hand, and she began analyzing him. This character who at first seemed like a bully had his own people who needed help, but as she thought it over, something didn’t add up between his desperation and coal covered face. “I don’t think so,” she said finally. “Tell me why you need to steal if you’re working, digging or shoveling coal?”

Disappointed, he put his hand down. The boy had would have rather that she didn’t ask that. His face shrunk and his head bowed answering her, “My name is Jianjun, I’m an orphan. I work, but the money goes to the orphanage who only spend it on themselves. I just want to give the others something good to eat.” He paused before trying to recruit her one more time. “Are you sure you’d rather do it by yourself? Did you look at the Soldiers carefully enough?” Then he pointed a finger and continued, “By the stand that you were about to steal from are four soldiers having dinner. Were you ready for what happened if you got caught?”

Ying frustratedly conceded, she couldn’t have done it by her herself, but what’s more, whether he was lying or exaggerating, she couldn’t turn him down after what he just told her. She didn’t say anything. Instead, she extended her hand, and The Boy perked up when he saw her do that. He smiled, clasped her hand and squeezed it tight before giving it a good shake and replied, “I was hoping you’d say that.”

They let go and turned to face the market together. “What do you want to do,” Ying asked.

“You have the easy part,” the boy schemed. “I create a distraction and draw the guards away, while you grab as much food as you can carry and run. There is an old outpost at the edge of town that no one uses anymore, I’ll meet you there.”

Ying nodded, “See you later, Jet,” she said, coining a nickname for him.

Jianjun nodded his head in recognition and left. Ying leaned against a wall waiting for his signal. She saw somebody haggling over a fruit stand, arguing that the fruit was overripe and not worth the price. Ying was unsure if Jianjun’s signal would actually come or if he was just some crafty pickpocket. She had everything on her person still, but perhaps she forgot something. The doubt didn’t leave her.

Then, a flock of pigeon-rats erupted from the roofs and she saw him again, Jianjun, standing against the incline of the green tiles, with the red sun shining directly behind him, cocksure smile and that stupid piece of straw sticking out of his mouth. He had a small pouch cinched to his waist. Finally, he retrieved a small round object from his pouch, raised his arm, threw it like an egg at the Fire Nation soldiers eating lunch below.

The object was a small, but powerful pebble that broke the porcelain pot that held the Fire Nation Soldier’s tea. The shards and the tea spilled everywhere and stained their uniforms. One of the soldiers with long hair buried his face in his hands and said, “No, not this again.”

Another soldier with a goatee launched up from his chair and looked at the direction the pebble came from.

Jianjun looked down at the three stooges and said this before hurtling another rock at them, “Down with the Ashmakers! People, remember your heritage. Fight these Fire Nation swine!”

This time the pebble hit the goateed soldier on his head. As it bounced off his unprotected skull, he growled and fell over. Blood trickled from his brow, and he covered it with his hand. He looked to the other two soldiers and said, “Get that delinquent!”

The other two soldiers put on their helmets and began climbing onto the roof, but in the time it took to boost one soldier and pull the other up, Jianjun had run across and leaped onto the building beside it. He threw more pebbles at them and taunted, “Where’s your commander, is he too much of a coward to face a little boy, or did the pebble stunt his bravery too?”

From the alley came the voice of their commander, “I heard that you little oaf. Let me up, boys.” The soldiers hoisted up their boss and began chasing after Jianjun.

The soldiers slipped on the shingles as they did their best to close the gap between them and the kid. Jianjun, leaped from roof to roof, keeping a step ahead before lobbing more rocks at them.

Ying saw the soldier’s attentions now completely diverted and realized she had her opening. She darted forward and assailed the Comodo-Chicken. She grabbed the whole thing, complete with the skewer, and thrust it into a sack before running off again. The stand operator went around his post to chase her, but she was already out of reach. Instead, he threw his hand in the air and exclaimed, “Get back here you thief!”

Ying ignored him and kept running. As she hustled, she saw another stand with a baker kneading a roll of dough on top of a small oven and a stack of fresh bread on the counter. Quickly, Ying stopped while the baker was putting the dough in the oven and stuffed the fresh bread into her sack, making off as soon as the baker turned around. When the other stand-owners saw what Ying was doing they covered their wares or pulled out their weapons.

Ying saw a corridor which exited the marketplace, and she bolted through it, running for the edge of town where Jianjun had directed her. Just as he had told her, there was an outpost.

The outpost was a really pathetic thing. The town had only one battlement and it was a tower made of brittle, chipping brick, and stone, but neither provided enough fortification to avoid getting savagely felled into halves. The base of the thing was still standing, but it had no roof or ceiling. Instead, it had a broken staircase leading up to the turret in the second half which was now laying on the ground, in pieces.

Ying turned her head and when she saw that no one was chasing her, ran directly for the old outpost. She placed her hand on the doorway and bent over, collecting her breath. When she had normalized a bit, she sat down and tore off a handful of bread from a loaf inside her sack. She didn’t even taste it. She swallowed and as she felt the bread slowly fall into her stomach, she felt her hunger slowly recede. Her ego hadn’t recovered with it. She felt lower than peasantry now.

Jianjun entered the threshold and humorously asked, “Save any for me?”

Ying rolled her eyes and held out the sack of stolen food. “Just a joke actually. It’s for other people, not me.”

“My name is Ying,” she muttered through a mouthful of bread.

Jianjun took a seat beside her and asked, “Where are you traveling to Ying?”

Ying took a moment to swallow her food and down it with her water before answering, “Ba Sing Se.”

Jianjun raised an eyebrow when she said that. Ba Sing Se was far away and a lofty goal for any traveler on foot, but Jianjun didn’t let his skepticism affect his welcoming tone. “What’s in Ba Sing Se for you?”

“Hopefully a place that’s safe from the war,” Ying answered.

“Here, here,” Jianjun answered, raising a clenched fist. “Did you not know this town was a Fire Nation colony? Is that why you needed money?”

“It didn’t say so on my map! I just walked right on in and didn’t have a choice!”

Jianjun laughed at her misfortune. “Wow, that’s really unlucky for you if you thought this was still Earth Kingdom. That’ll get you killed. Mind if I take a look at your map? Maybe I can help you out.”

Ying thought nothing of it. She tore off another mouthful of bread and handed him the map.

“Wow,” he said after a minute of looking at it. “This is really out of date.”

As he started crossing out Fire Nation towns, he ventured to ask another question, “Are you an orphan like me? Is that why you’re traveling alone?”

“No,” she began, “the Fire Nation captured my village. They took away my family’s house and land and said that it belonged to the Army. We lost everything and I didn’t do anything until I realized that my Dad began working for the Army, and our new home looked like one in their homeland. I ran away. I couldn’t stand living there any longer and made up my mind to get as far away from the war as I possibly could. I want to make a new life for myself whenever I arrive in Ba Sing Se.”

Jianjun stopped working and sat back against the wall with her. “My home was destroyed in a Fire Nation raid a year ago. We lived close by and everyone fled here. That’s why there is an orphanage; it’s for kids like me with no home anymore. Unfortunately, this is a Fire Nation village now, so even the orphanage is terrible. The people who run it made a deal with the Village Factory. So, the factory pays them to have us work and make weapons for the Fire Nation while the orphanage pockets all the money and feeds us dirt.”

Jianjun handed the map back to Ying, “Should be all good now.”

“Thanks.”

“Hey,” Jianjun nervously intoned, “if you need a place to sleep, I think I can sneak you into the Orphanage. It won’t be great, but they have some empty beds that you could sleep on. You might prefer sleeping on a cot to sleeping in the cold.”

Ying considered his proposal. She wasn’t completely averse to the cold, and her tent kept most of it out anyway, but in all honestly, she found Jianjun’s devil may care attitude endearing, and friends were something she rarely made on her journey.

“Yeah, that sounds nice.”

Jianjun stood up, held out a hand for Ying.

“Let’s get moving,” he said.

The sun had now completely set and the remainder of the land was lit only with a deep red hue. Ying eagerly followed Jianjun at first, but her enthusiasm became stilted as she recognized the ghost house drawing closer to them. She wasn’t frightened of anything, but she didn’t like the aura of that place.

Ying realized that it must be the orphanage, and she relaxed her scowl. Jianjun was right about how obviously corrupt the place was if they thought that was an appropriate place for _anyone_ to live. She stepped cautiously forward, remembering she still had her knives if anything went down.

Jianjun led Ying to the courtyard with untrimmed shrubbery, overgrown trees, and the two-story-tall ghost house. Dusk had emphasized the worst aspects, making it even uglier up close. Jianjun retrieved a ladder hidden behind an overgrown bush. He placed it against the wall, ascended the steps, and cracked open the dormitory window. He climbed inside and gestured for Ying to begin making her way up.

Ying started up and took Jianjun’s hand as she climbed through the window sill. Ying handed Jianjun the bag of bread as he cast the ladder off.

She surveyed the darkened room and noticed that none of the orphans were asleep, but had either sat down with a friend or two around the friendly, yellow glow of a candle or they were huddled around a solitary figure. It was too dark to discern anything, but she could tell the person had a cone hat and was handing out candles and food. The soft glow of light, emanating from those children projected a supernatural luminance on the figure, like a spirit. _Perhaps this place really is haunted_, she thought.

She pointed at the strange person and asked, “Who’s that?”

Jianjun turned around, unaware of who was present, and when he saw the figure with a mass of orphans around him, he knew exactly who it was. “HO!”

Jianjun rushed through the darkness to greet him. Ying had no idea who Ho was, but felt spellbound by him and decided to get closer.

Ho had run out of candles and began handing out food. The candlelight revealed his true features. He had bushy eyebrows, and a face that was a bit oddly constructed, but combined with the candlelight, Ying thought was a bit untraditionally handsome. He was stoic, rugged, and wore a dirty blue tunic, a tattered red shawl around his shoulders and smelled like an animal.

She didn’t expect Jianjun to be a hugger, but he gave Ho a close embrace and began asking a hundred questions. “Where have you been? Why were you late? Is there any news? How long should all the food last?” Ho shook his head and smiled at Jianjun’s rapid-fire pop quiz.

Ying tugged on Jianjun’s shirt and asked him again, “Who is he?”

Jianjun let go of Ho and faced Ying again, getting a grip on himself. “Sorry. Ying, this is Ho. He lives in the forest by the town and brings us food. Thanks to him, everyone has been able to stay a little happy despite all of the hard work. Actually, I can’t really tell you much about him. He doesn’t really like talking about himself, or talking at all really.”

Ying looked at Ho and saw someone who was at once very different and very similar to Jianjun. People who don’t talk usually have some reason for it, and it wouldn’t be light. Jianjun had his way of dealing with his past and Ho had his. She didn’t need to probe any further than that.

Jianjun recalled all of what had happened that day like he was an epic hero. Ho frowned when he heard that Jianjun had stolen the food, and without saying a word, Ho managed to scold Jianjun with his eyes, “_You shouldn’t have done that_.”

Ho looked inside Jianjun’s bag, but his spirit didn’t improve. He cocked an eyebrow as if to say “_Really? There’s hardly anything in here_.”

Ho was silent, but his eyes telegraphed messages so clear that you could read his thoughts, “_You stole from civilians_.” Ho reminded them. “_All that makes you is a thug_.”

“I didn’t know what else to do,” Jianjun said, trying to defend his intentions. “We didn’t know when you’d be back,” Jianjun said ashamed.

“If you hate this orphanage and The Fire Nation so much,” Ying broke in, “why don’t you come with me to Ba Sing Se?”

Jianjun spoke solemnly, “And abandon everyone here? Not a chance. We can’t leave these kids to the same fate we started in. The Fire Nation were the ones who came _here_, they should be the ones to _go_.”

“I’m sorry,” Ying said.

Ho nodded, accepting her apology and opened his mouth to speak for the first time.

“If you like,” he began, in a characteristically soft and kindhearted voice, “you can come with me into the forest. I’ll show you my home, give you some supplies for your journey and teach you to identify edible plants.”

Jianjun rolled his eyes. “Oh, really,” he said, half surprised and half jealous. “You talk for her, but not me!”

Ho laughed and Ying’s eyes lit up. “That sounds great,” she said, completely ignoring Jianjun. “I’d love to.”

Ho smiled. “Great,” he said, speaking like he was trying to hide how happy he was. “We’ll need to get up early. We have a long day, tomorrow.”

“Nothing I’m not used to,” Ying said, already prepared for another adventure.

Ho passed Jianjun an inventory of all the food he brought. The stash was hidden throughout the dormitory, and they surmised that it should last them another thirty days. After everyone had their fill to eat, the children tucked themselves into bed. Jianjun showed Ying to an unclaimed mattress before climbing into his own bed.

Ho woke up before dawn and went to check on Ying, but she was already awake. She quietly got out of bed and collected her things before they headed out. The moon was bright and provided them an easy way to the woods. The sun only started rising as they entered the trees.

They marched for a long time. Ho stopped and started up again many times, plucking different plants from the ground and showing Ying. She learned about all kinds of different mushrooms, wild fruit and berries, as well as various tubers and roots, and how to find things like nuts. Once he was done showing her, he would point his finger, signaling her to look for the plant on her own. Ying searched through tufts of grass and prickly bushes and whatever she brought back, Ho would show her difference between good and bad plants.

Next, Ho led Ying to a natural clearing in the woods. The grass was so soft you could sleep comfortably in it at night and never get cold. Insects were busy bothering animals or constructing their homes somewhere else. Ying found copious amounts of pink berries lying on the ground as if they were sprouting out of the earth. Ying rushed to pick them, but Ho quickly held her back and notched an arrow. He fired it at the berries and a round steel trap sprung up out of the ground before being carried up into the treetops.

“Fire Nation traps,” He explained. “Before I started living in the woods, The Fire Nation was here, and they would over hunt before the next generation of animals could grow, so I have been sabotaging these traps whenever I can find them.”

Ho then pulled a journal out of his pack and opened it, and he tallied the number of traps he saw on the ground.

“They have been using fewer and fewer of these types of traps recently. I’m afraid they are going to start sending hunters and poachers in again, but I don’t know what else to do.”

He passed the journal to Ying. She sifted through the pages and was amazed at the data he collected. All the different species of animals, and their rates of reproduction, as well as deaths.

“I’m impressed,” Ying said. “I can’t imagine the amount of work this takes.”

Ho smiled at her compliment, but just then, Ho heard a twig snap somewhere behind him. He had surveilled the area already, it was clear of Fire Nation Soldiers, it had to be a Hog-Monkey, which could be dangerous if it believed they had encroached on their turf. His instincts took over, reflexively, he notched an arrow in his bow, he spun around, centered his aim on the source of the sound and fired. By now he was so skilled with the bow, he had done it all in a matter of seconds. He was a small prodigy.

The arrow sailed through the air behind him and hit the bush where the sound emanated from, but there was no animal. Ying froze and Ho stood like a mountain, waiting for a response. Then, out of the bushes leaped a squirrel toad; it chirped at them.

Ho’s face shrunk and shoulders slouched. Ying fell over and cackled. He turned around and winced in embarrassment. Ying got up, slowly letting out the last bits of laughter. Ying put a hand on his shoulder.

“It happens.”

Ho gave her a small smile and they both calmed down. Ying retrieved her journal and handed it to Ho.

“I don’t have anything quite your journal, but I have been noting all the different animals I’ve seen on my journey and keeping details and sketches whenever I see a new one.”

Ho found the last animal she sketched, the bee with the curled tail. “This one is common in arid regions and we call it the scorpion-bee. The honey they make is delightful, but it is so dangerous to collect it that most people stay away.”

They laughed together until Ho got an idea of his own. He started walking again and gestured for Ying to follow him.

“What’s out there?” Ying asked. Ho didn’t answer, but he did give her a wry smile.

They came to an area where the trees were taller than all the rest and purer green than jade. Ho showed her to the trunk of one particularly wide tree and in its side was a small opening where bees circulated in and out, and they collectively started landing on Ho, making all sorts of squeaks, chirps and buzzing. He smiled, retrieving an old apple core out of his pack and laughed as they started feasting on the leftovers. They looked different from other bees: They had brown and black fur, a big round nose and adorable eyes.

“They’re a hybrid of the mouse and the bee,” Ho explained. “They are particularly gentle and you have to do a lot to really anger them. The only animals they really hate are the platypus-bears because they love to take their honey. So, they make a surplus and they will usually let you skim a little off the top if you give them an offering.”

“The apple?” Ying interjected.

“Yep. You saw how they found my old apple; that’s because they have a strong sense of smell which helps them find flowers, but they also adore junk food and they have a tendency to get so fat they can’t fly.”

Ying chuckled.

“I actually call them the ‘Smelling-Bee’ because of their nose.”

Ho gestured for Ying to come closer, and as she slowly made her way, the bees began collecting on her. Ying grit her teeth at first, but she looked at how at ease Ho was and relaxed. Ho handed her a small leather sack and a metal spoon.

“Just reach in and scoop. I promise they won’t hurt you.”

Ying scraped off a portion of the honeycomb into the bag and left them alone.

“I think that of all the animals I’ve seen,” she said through a smile. “These are my new favorite.”

There was a moment of silence between them, and they started walking again until, just then, a crash thundered through the wood. Seconds later they felt the vibrations ripple over the ground like a rock thrown into a pond. The birds flocked from their nests in the treetops and flew above them. Ying was amazed at the size of the crash, but Ho’s face was solid and stern.

Ho hustled through the forestation and Ying followed closely behind him. It wasn’t long before, finally, they came to the source of the noise, woodsmen.

There were seven men who stood ahead of them, sawing and cutting away with axes, felling trees big and small alike. Ho’s anger was kindled and his face curled together. He took a deep breath and notched an arrow, aimed by one Woodsman’s foot. Ying, completely in sync with Ho, shouted at the woodsmen, “STOP!” Then Ho loosed his arrow.

The arrow hit the ground by the Woodsman’s foot, precisely where Ho had aimed it. The Woodsman withheld the next swing of his ax, beholding the near unfortunate fate of his foot. He stared for a second and held his breath until, with all his fury, he yelled back, “BUZZ OFF!”

“You shouldn’t be here!” Ying fired back. “If you don’t go now and leave the forest in peace, we won’t hold back!”

The Woodsman was not amused, and he called out “GUARDS.”

Hiding behind a cluster of trees, three armored Fire Nation soldiers lazily stood up from where they had been having tea. One was a woman, apparently, the leader, with incredibly toned arms, and her two compatriots were men. They were clean-shaven and held spears, while one was quite lanky, and his partner was one bowl of rice away from being fat.

The Leader shot a burst of flame toward them. Ying immediately retaliated and threw a knife, but it accomplished little, she could see it coming and dodged.

“Arrest the vagrants,” the leader commanded.

Ying and Ho about-faced and began running as the three soldiers chased after them. Ho pivoted right, towards a tree with a dangling rope. Ying followed, but was perplexed.

“Hold on,” he instructed.

Ying grabbed onto him and as the soldiers closed in on them, Ho tugged the roped and felt a jolt as they were sprung upwards. The soldiers jumped to catch them, but they were already high in the air when they crashed into each other on the dirt.

A platform rushed past Ying’s eyes, and Ho skillfully shifted his weight, letting go of the rope at just the right time, and crashed safely onto it. It took the wind out of Ying, but Ho stood up and fired another arrow at the soldiers. The aim was deadly, but as it sped towards them it was knocked astray by a random gust of wind.

The soldiers fought back and used their firebending to set torch the tree they stood on. Ho looked around, but he was out of ideas. There was another tree, but it was too far away to risk jumping to. Ying gathered herself and saw the retribution. Without wasting any moment, she saw the tree next to them and brazenly jumped for it. Ho followed her and leaped.

By some obscenity of nature, Ying was too short, and her legs didn’t carry her far enough for her hand to catch the tree branch, but Ho was behind her and by some unearthly providence caught her hand before she began falling and his other hand gripped the bark of the tree.

The soldiers below noticed their unsavory predicament and stretched out a net to both save and ensnare them.

Ho gripped the branch as hard as he could, but Ying weighed on him and he couldn’t pull both of them up with his one hand. Ultimately it wasn’t his strength that failed them, but the branch. Just then, a hive of termite-beetles spurt out from all over. The branch snapped like a twig and they fell into the soldier’s snare.

The fall was rough and the net didn’t completely stop them from hitting the ground. The soldiers tied the ends of the net together as Ying and Ho were still disoriented. The soldiers debated amongst themselves who should get rid of them, finally settling on the two men to carry the net and the Leader would stay behind. Ying and Ho struggled to get through the net, but to no avail. Finally, the lanky soldier couldn’t take it anymore.

“If you don’t settle down, I’m going to have to put you in jail. Do you want that?”

“What gives you the right” Ying protested, “to cut down the forest which has belonged to this village for generations and decimating the environment that these people hunt and collect food from?”

“The forest did once belong to everyone,” The fat soldier responded, “under the rule of the Earth Kingdom, but now this territory belongs to the Fire Nation. So, it’s none of your business and you should just go back to where you came from.”

Ying was stunned at this soldier’s ignorance. This town belonged to the Earth Kingdom and he was a foreigner. If anything, it was **HE** who should go back to where he came from.

The soldier stopped talking with them and all that was left was the sound of trees falling. They emerged onto the edge of the forest and saw an army of Fire Nation soldiers turning away other peasants to. This was not just a blow to Ying and Ho who needed supplies and to provide for others, but a tragedy for all the common people.

The soldiers released them and urged them to leave. The sun was setting when they made it back to the Orphanage to inform Jianjun of what happened.

They waited until everyone was entirely asleep. They lit a single candle and talked to each other about what had happened.

Ying told the story and Jianjun was furious, but he did his best to hush his voice. “I thought they were planning to do this for a while; I just didn’t think it would be this soon.

“A couple of weeks ago I was eavesdropping on a couple of soldiers and they talked about how the factory owner had recently triangulated a deposit of steel ore beneath the forest. They are chopping down the forest now because they want to mine the steel ore themselves instead of having to pay more to import it.

“That means they can turn the ore into weapons and sell them to the Fire Nation at half the cost as before. Since the Fire Nation is encroaching more and more on Earth Kingdom territory it needs Factories like this one to provide them weapons more efficiently than having to ship them all the way from the homeland.”

Ying pondered their situation, “How are you going to continue to survive if you can’t use the forest?”

“That’s just it,” Jianjun told her. “We can’t. We’ll be at the mercy of the orphanage again. There is only one option, we have to remove the Factory as a variable.”

Ho and Ying’s eyes darted toward Jianjun. Ying broke in again.

“What do you mean, remove the Factory? Demolish it, like an old building? How would you even do that? You don’t have the people or the tools.”

“Not right now we don’t.” Jianjun turned to Ho and began addressing him. “You know how we keep producing weapons for the Factory. Whenever we finish one, we put it in a pile and it goes to another person who takes it to a storage room, but in just a day we make so many weapons that they can’t possibly be holding it within the factory. The weapons have to be going to someplace, some facility with no other purpose except to hold the massive amount of weapons we make until The Fire Nation shows up to take them; an armory and probably within the village.”

Ho looked confused, as if to ask, “_Where are you going with this_?”

“I’m getting to that part,” Jianjun assured him. “In the housing district, there is already a building like that. Just as massive as The Factory and the Orphanage with guards that change shifts throughout the day. It is right across the street from us. The big, red, barn looking one. That has to be the Armory. We would sneak in, grab explosives and plant them inside The Factory.”

“That’s crazy,” Ying interjected. “Jianjun, the Fire Nation knows who you are, they will know you had something to do with it. As soon as they find out that they were complicit, the orphans would lose this place as their home.”

Ho nodded in agreement, folding his arms as if he was convinced against the plan.

“Not if there weren’t any orphans,” Jianjun schemed. “Ho, you have lived in the woods for a year now. You have experience. We can move the orphans into the woods and you can teach us to live there.

“They are going to sense a change soon if we don’t tell them what is happening. Who do you think they’ll trust, the people starving them or the people feeding them? The ones who decide to stay will let the authorities know that it was no one else but us.

“If we pull this thing off, there is still going to be a lot of work cut out for us, but it will be a real blow to the Fire Nation, and we will be free. Are you with me?”

Ying thought it over. She had all the supplies she needed until she reached her next town, but none of that mattered to her now. She felt a responsibility to help a friend now, and that responsibility overruled all her other priorities.

“I’m with you Jet,” she said conclusively.

Both of them hovered on Ho, who was sitting and mulling the proposition over to himself silently.

Jianjun’s mind turned like a wheel, trying to think of what he could say to get Ho on his side. Even Ying was beginning to stare at Ho, wondering where his mind was at. _Is he really this skeptical of me_, Jianjun wondered?

Contrary to what Jianjun had perceived, Ho was not concerned about his plan. He knew that Jianjun fancied himself to be a revolutionary, but while Jianjun was comfortable in that role, Ho had not committed to it like he had. He brought children food, but in his mind, he was just providing a service. He masked it well, but Ho had a deep well of fear and anxiety over the probability of things going wrong. He closed his eyes and began considering what the alternative was: the forest razed to a pile of tree stumps, the natural order disrupted and hungry villagers as a result. There were no alternatives.

Finally, Ho’s eyes darted open, anxious for action, and he nodded. “_Alright_,” his eyes told them, “_I’m with you._”

They snuffed out the light.


	4. Midnight Strike

The next morning, Jianjun and Ho woke up the Orphans before breakfast. Jianjun and Ho sat against a wall, while the children formed a semicircle in front of them. Jianjun broke the news.

The children were confused and saddened. The younger ones didn’t understand when they heard that Uncle Ho and Jianjun wouldn’t feed them anymore and began crying. The older children were similarly dismayed, but they didn’t know what to say. What do you say when you hear your home will become irreconcilably changed, and you have no control?

Finally, Jianjun explained his plan, and when he asked for a show of hands for who would come with them, the response was better than he could have dreamed for. Every single hand was in the air.

Ho staked out the red barn and noted the soldier’s behaviors and shift changes. Ho passed off his notes to Jianjun, and Jianjun formulated their plan.

The building was most secured during the day and had only two people watching it at night. So, Jianjun reasoned that a night operation would be easiest.

Ho described the two guards as a man and a woman who liked talking all night, reading, eating junk food and were very complacent. In common, they had long black hair fashioned into a topknot and the same red, light armor. The man was shorter than average and young, like a teenager. The woman was only slightly shorter than him, in her mid-twenties, and had a habit of drinking wine from a pouch while on duty. Ho had also noted that she was very afraid of the elephant-rats that occasionally scurried around the building.

Ho’s notes included sightings of regular shipments of crates and in two instances Ho saw those crates opened for inspections, confirming Jianjun’s suspicions. The unsuspecting barn was indeed an armory. Jianjun drew up a blueprint of the structure for them to prepare.

It stood roughly two stories tall and had a small entry door in its front and two much larger doors to its rear where carriages could enter, be loaded and depart. Beside the small door in front were two sets of staircases to its left and right that went up to a walkway on its second level. After much patrolling, Ho spied a hidden door leading inside from the walkway. He had no way to know what was inside, and no way to know if it was even a real door, but he believed that this would be their way in. They would use the town’s terrain to their advantage and begin on a hill that overlooked The Armory.

They plotted together one final night, on the eve of their operation, and Jianjun finalized their plan.

“Ho will use his archery to create a zipline for us to get in through the door on the second level. I have experience lockpicking and I think I can get through the door. Once inside we need to find two things: blasting jelly, and a cart to haul it. The guards are so lazy that they will allow us to slip in and out undetected. We just move the blasting jelly to the factory, set the fuse and make our way back to the Forest, safe and sound.

“There is only one thing, if I can’t get us inside, then the whole mission is a failure and we will just have to wait and try again.”

They nodded and began to prepare themselves. Ho crafted arrows, Ying sharpened her knives and Jianjun rehearsed with them until they were ready. Then the time came.

They woke up and hiked up to a hill just outside the town, where they could access the Armory Just before midnight. The moon’s silver glow illuminated the town. _Thank Tui it is bright tonight_, Ho thought, more nervously than the rest of them. Jianjun toyed with the straw between his teeth as they walked.

Ho tied the rope to his arrow. They waited for the female guard to circle the armory’s perimeter on her routine inspection. She took a swig from her wine pouch before joining her comrade, and after she had passed, Ho aimed his arrow and shot. The arrow punctured the wall and Jianjun tied the other end of the rope around a tree. Ho tested the security of the line and after nodding to them, they zipped down, one by one, on the line like a calculating spider-fly slowly descending its silken thread to capture its prey.

Ying came down first and slowed down as best as she could before kicking her foot out against the wall to stop. She let go of the line and touched down onto the railing, as light and unnoticeable as a speck of dust. She signaled for them to follow her, and Jianjun came next, followed by Ho.

Ho snapped the arrow lodged in the wall, and tied their end of the rope over the shaft of another arrow and aimed it as far away as he could before the rope flew off like a dragon.

Quickly, they scuttled off to the alternate entry. Jianjun took out his lockpicks and got to work. Ying checked around the corner and saw the shadow of a guard coming their way. “Guard’s coming,” she whispered as loudly as she could.

Jianjun wasn’t making any progress and was putting so much pressure on his picks they were on the verge of breaking. Sweat began to drip down from his forehead and clenched his straw furiously. Ho looked away and began contemplating calling off the mission, but just then, Jianjun broke through. He heard a small click and felt a subtle jolt. Jianjun finished just in time.

Pressed for time, Jianjun swung open the door, hoping that any guards would be too distracted to notice any creaking noise. Jianjun jumped inside and held the door open for Ying and Ho before shutting it just short of slamming it.

The guard had just turned the corner, directly under the catwalk where they had been, and paused when she heard the door slam. She looked up, trying to see something through the cracks of the wood. She heard something skitter across and assumed her fighting stance as she moved to assess the walkway. As she looked up, a small elephant-rat dropped down and landed on her face.

“GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!” she shrieked.

She shook and shimmied until it hit the ground. She shot a burst of red fire as it raced off. Panicked by the vermin, she forgot about the sound and ran back to her comrade.

Inside, the entire armory was lit yellow by tiny lanterns which dotted the walls. There was a main hall with the second floor that they stood on, staircases leading up and down on the walls to their left and right, and a bridge in the middle of the second floor which connected the two sides. The bottom floor was neglected and dirty, with pebbles littered all over. The hall contained several different rooms, and they would have to search them all until they found what they needed.

“We’ll split up to search the area quicker,” Jianjun directed. “You know what to do from there.”

Jianjun and Ho began searching the bottom floors while Ying scattered across the second floor. She found rooms with different armors, spears, but also came upon an empty office with a messenger hawk and notes strewn about the place.

Curiosity plagued her mind, and Ying pondered whether to read the different messages or continue searching_. It isn’t part of their mission_, she thought, _but maybe I could find a secret message and expose a weakness_. So, she began reading.

One note detailed the number of arms produced by the factory, side by side with costs, their budget and other financial things. Uninterested, she put that note aside and picked up another one. This note was about different calendar dates that shipment teams would arrive on to move their weapons to different bases. These reports had almost dried up the last of Ying’s curiosity, with little satisfaction, until she picked up the next note. It was dated a month ago and had been cleared for dissemination to the lower-ranking soldiers. It read:

> _Soldiers,_
> 
> _History has been made. As of this writing, The Fire Nation Army, led by brave General Iroh, has broken through the outer wall of the Earth Kingdom capital Ba Sing Se, a heretofore unimaginable feat. any time in our nation’s history. ‘The Impenetrable City’ has been penetrated, and with your regular resolve and determination, the war will soon be won._

Tears streamed down her eyes as she crumpled the letter in her hand. She held her family necklace to her heart, devastated. Still holding onto the letter, she left the office and saw Ho and Jianjun looking for her. Jianjun saw her eyes and raced up the stairs. Without asking anything, he saw the paper in her hand and taking it, read it to himself.

“What am I going to do Jet,” she said to him. “Where can I go? The Fire Nation is going to capture the greatest stronghold on earth. I am going to wake up someday and the entire Earth Kingdom will be gone!”

As she said these words, tears came spilling out of her eyes and she began to hyperventilate.

“Pretty soon there won’t be a home for any us. I don’t want to wear their red clothes; I can’t. I can’t be like my parents! What can I do!”

Jianjun looked at her and spoke like he had never been surer of anything in the world, “Look at me, Ying. Look at where we are. Look at what we’re doing. Ho and I have been living as Fire Nation colonials, but I’m still me. This patch of land didn’t become Fire Nation just because somebody said so, it has always been yours and mine. We are here because this is our home, **NOT** theirs.

“We don’t need to run. We have to remind them of the truth, and never let them forget it! That’s why we’ll beat them. We are strong and resilient. We are a force of nature that won’t go away. We **ARE** Earth Kingdom. As long as there are people like us who stand up, The Fire Nation can never win. We have people now who need us, are we going to let them down?”

Ho had been below them but paused as he heard Jianjun belt out that whopper of a pep talk. It had touched him almost as much as it did Ying. He began to see now why the other kids trusted him so much. His old image of Jianjun as a troublemaker began to fade away, and it was replaced by one who he could look up to as a true leader. When Jianjun had finished, he looked for the biggest barrel of blasting jelly he could find, crouched down, wrapped his arms around it, lifted it with his legs and started walking.

Ying calmed down and gained control of herself again. As she was going to answer, she looked down at Ho. He was below her and was busy loading their cart with a barrel of blasting jelly bigger than he was. She couldn’t help but smile at a sight so silly and yet a person more determined.

Ying faced Jianjun again, “No,” she said finally. “I won’t let my people down. Thanks, Jet.”

She let go of her necklace and followed Ho downstairs. They filled the cart to the brim, nearly overflowing with blasting jelly when they decided it was time to go and hauled the blasting jelly to the back entrance.

Ho peeked his head outside to check that the coast was clear. He couldn’t see any movement and heard the guards talking to each other. Ho signaled for Jianjun and Ying to wheel out the explosives.

Ho undid the latch holding the other door shut and opened both doors just enough to fit the cart through and no more. Jianjun and Ying pushed the cart through the crack.

Jianjun and Ying pushed the cart as slowly and carefully as they could, but it still managed to rattle over the filthy, uneven floor. Jianjun winced at every little thud and creak the cart made, terrified the guards would hear them.

One of the wheels came clunking down from over a pebble and the whole cart began to quake. At the top of the cart, one of the barrels shook free and it came crashing down to the floor. The barrel dribbled itself around the room, making an ungodly loud sound as it traveled.

Jianjun froze and Ying held her breath but none of them were sure if the sound had alerted the guards. They stood paralyzed, listening, hoping to hear any sign they might be in trouble, but nothing disturbed the quiet chatter between the guards. Finally, Jianjun insisted they were good to go and they began moving the cart again.

They moved the cart outside, and Ho secured the door like no one had been there. Quietly, the three of them began making their way to the Factory when their worst fear had finally come on them.

“Hey! Stop right where you are!” A voice shouted at them from behind.

Their hearts were racing and Ho’s pounded like an earthquake. His instincts took over. Reflexively, he notched an arrow in his bow, spun around, centered his aim on the source of the disturbance, and fired. By now he was so skilled with the bow, he had done it all in a matter of seconds, just like in the forest. His eyes widened as he realized what he had done. His aim was perfect. The arrow raced towards the guard and pierced his armor. Ho’s palms began to sweat and he stood frozen.

“Damnit,” Jianjun whispered to himself.

Before, everything felt like it was happening in slow motion, but now Jianjun felt like everything was happening too quickly, and spinning out of control. Jianjun stared at Ho, but he wasn’t doing anything. Jianjun realized he was going to have to be the one to step up and take command this time.

“Ho,” he called, “they know we are here now, get them off our tail and meet us back at the forest.”

Ho turned around and nodded at him. Without hesitating a second longer, he disappeared into the dark night.

Then Jianjun turned to Ying, “Let’s go.”

Jianjun and Ying began pushing the cart again, wheeling it towards the brick-laden factory. Their hearts raced as they contemplated the odds that they might be captured.

Jianjun picked the lock around the factory gate and they hauled the cart through the courtyard till it was standing just outside the front door. Jianjun and Ying hurriedly carried the blasting jelly inside.

The torches inside the factory were out, leaving only luminescent green crystal for them to see. Jianjun was still repulsed by it, but there was no time to dwell. Hurriedly, they carried the blasting jelly inside. Jianjun set his barrels to destroy the very foundations of the structure while Ying set hers by the instruments and the forges.

When they finished, Ying began setting the fuses, allotting themselves just enough time to make it to the edge of town. Jianjun peered through the front door and spied Fire Nation soldiers looking for them outside the factory gate. He realized they could not go out the way they came in and, thinking on his feet, he grabbed a heavy but powerful ax to escape through the back door and create a new exit through the fence. Ying lit the fuses and they ran like hell.

Mr. Zhang, the factory supervisor, sat in a secluded closet, over a chamber pot, while Jianjun and Ying were setting fuses. He was burning a candle while he sat, examining a stack of reports. Throughout the night he believed he heard sounds coming from outside, but they were faint and for a time he believed it was all just a trick of his mind. Then he heard a door slam, and his suspicion was sufficiently sparked. Finally, he got up, put on his pants and stepped outside.

“Tzu, is that you?” He called to the silence, but there was no response.

_ It is probably nothing_, he thought to himself, but as he stared at the door, he couldn’t banish the faint suspicion that something _wasn’t_ right. He put down his work and clasped his whip, walking carefully towards the door.

He opened it and saw a hole in the wooden fence and an ax laying right beside it. He walked to the fence and as he peered through the hole he saw the shape of two children running for the trees. The darkness made it impossible to discern any other details. They must’ve been the ones he heard. He didn’t know what they were doing, but he had no doubt about their nefarious intentions. He shouted at the top of his lungs.

“VAGRANTS! TRESPASSERS!”

Jianjun and Ying stopped running. Jianjun recognized Mr. Zhang’s distinct voice. He didn’t think anyone was home. He turned around and saw him standing right where they had escaped. Soldiers had run to meet Mr. Zhang when they heard his yell.

“There they are! They’re fleeing into the woods,” Mr. Zhang informed them.

“Follow them,” The Squad Leader commanded.

Jianjun screamed with anger. “AGH, why did that guard have to muck everything up!”

Ying put a hand on his shoulder and laughed, pointing toward the cart they left at the Factory. “They haven’t found it yet. They have no idea what our plan is!”

Jianjun and Ying hustled as fast as they could up the hill and towards the woods, but their legs were just too small to outrun the soldiers. They made it to the tree line, where tree stumps met full-grown firs. The tree stumps had artificially the tree line like a crescent.

The soldiers had caught up and were now right behind them. Mr. Zhang and the Squad Leader emerged in front. The Squad Leader had a goatee and long hair, down to his shoulders, hanging out from his red helmet. Mr. Zhang unstrapped his whip while the Squad Leader gripped his sword.

“We have you now,” The Squad Leader declared.

But as The Squad Leader raised his sword at Jianjun and Ying, he felt a vibration ripple through the ground, followed by the colossal sound of crashing concrete, ringing steel and fire exploding. The fuses had finally lit the blasting jelly and The Factory had finally erupted in flames. The Squad Leader and Mr. Zhang turned around and saw several smaller explosions coming out of The Factory. The walls and the ceiling collapsed and whatever was left turned to smoldering grain.

Mr. Zhang’s face became pale like a ghost, and his mouth gaped open like a cave. He shrieked like a banshee. Those listening could only make out two words, “MY FACTORY!”

The Squad leader was stunned, but he wasn’t completely debilitated like Mr. Zhang. _There was no way two kids did this_, he thought.

“Go!” The Squad Leader ordered. “Make sure no one else is down there. Find out who else these kids are working with!”

Ying turned to Jianjun and whispered, “They didn’t capture Ho!”

Half of the Squad turned around and raced for the factory while Five soldiers stayed behind. Then, out of the woods, a bird began singing. The Squad leader turned his head, and dimwitted as he was, didn’t realize why a bird would be singing in the middle of the night. When Jianjun heard the tune, he began laughing, first as a cackle before it turned into a riotous roar. The Squad leader faced Jianjun.

“What are you laughing about?” The Squad Leader interrogated.

Jianjun glared at the Soldier and said, “You were partly right that we didn’t just blow up the factory by ourselves. In fact, we had a third person, but what you don’t know is that we had a contingency in case we were ever separated.”

Jianjun whistled back to the mysterious bird in the woods and put an arm around Ying’s shoulder and hugged the dirt. A torrent of rocks came raining down from the trees, pelting the soldiers from all directions like hail. Caught by surprise, stones struck them in their faces, breaking one soldier’s nose, and bruised their unshielded tissue.

“Duck!” The Squad Leader commanded, but it was already too late.

Soon, the soldiers were buckling over in pain and dropping their weapons. Then the hailstorm of rocks ended, Ho and an army of children dropped down from the trees and vaulted forward from out of the bushes. Children tall, short, thin, girthy, muscular and lanky, surrounded them. Jianjun and Ying rose triumphantly, like the whole world was revolving around them now.

Jianjun threw a clenched fist into the air and bellowed, “**FOR THE EARTH KINGDOM**!”

Jianjun targeted Mr. Zhang and stormed after him, roaring like a Lion-Elephant. Behind him was a stampeding horde of orphan children, armed with nothing but their hands, long fingernails, and baby teeth. They picked up the weapons the soldiers dropped and swarmed the soldiers.

“Leave Mr. Zhang,” Jianjun commanded. “He’s mine.”

Jianjun picked up two hooked blades, discarded on the ground, and faced down with Mr. Zhang. As the battle raged around them, they stared each other down and circled the other like two apex predators. Then they stopped, Mr. Zhang raised his whip before, finally, stepping forward and swinging his arm down, yelling, “Insolent child!”

Jianjun dodged the lash and as he moved to strike, Mr. Zhang thrashed with his whip to keep the distance between them, but Jianjun’s strike was a feint. Jianjun retracted and as Mr. Zhang moved with his whole body to block Jianjun’s false move, Jianjun swung his blade and sliced through his side. Jianjun took a few steps forward before spinning around to meet his enemy, breathing heavily.

Mr. Zhang turned around, realizing he had been tricked. With his left hand, he felt blood dripping out of his abdomen, but even though Jianjun had landed a blow, he did not kill him. Mr. Zhang chuckled to himself before stepping forward and raising his lash.

As Mr. Zhang’s whip came snaking forward, Jianjun realized he didn’t have the strength to keep fighting him like he was. His heart was racing and his adrenaline was coursing, but his weapons were heavy and he was near his breaking point. Jianjun looked at the hooked blades in his hands and knew he had to be craftier.

With all his might, Jianjun swung one blade to block Mr. Zhang’s whip and used his other blade to cut through the lash. Jianjun raced forward swinging his blade to catch Mr. Zhang’s boot. He had underestimated Jianjun for the last time. Jianjun’s hook wrapped around Mr. Zhang’s ankle and Jianjun flung him face-first into the dirt.

Mr. Zhang doubled over, lying on his back, coughing after having the wind taken out of him. Jianjun faced Mr. Zhang and stared at him for a moment as he writhed and flopped like a fish. Then he stabbed down with his sword hilts and pierced Mr. Zhang’s ribcage. Mr. Zhang coughed and a spurt of blood shot from his mouth and painted Jianjun’s face red, baptizing him. As the blood dripped down from his face, Jianjun looked down at Mr. Zhang and he felt neither remorse or pity, but a sense of satisfaction as he realized what he had done.

Jianjun smiled and stood up to survey the rest of the battle. The orphans had pinned down a soldier and Ying climbed over him and slit his throat. Ho aimed and shot the Squad Leader dead as he was trying to slay one of their friends. The three remaining men ran back towards the town. The children cheered as they saw the cowardly Fire Nation soldiers fleeing.

“Remember this day.” Jianjun proclaimed. “Remember, how we beat The Fire Nation and saved our TRUE home from them. Soon they will realize that The Earth Kingdom can never be conquered!”

The children cheered again at Jianjun’s speech, and when he heard their support, he issued his first command.

“Everyone, follow me, and I’ll show you our new home.”

Ho studied Jianjun in wonder as the children formed a block behind him, and began following. Ho had always been the one bringing food for them, but under Jianjun’s leadership, he found himself obsolete. Far from being jealous, Ho smiled as he looked on, filled with immense pride at Jianjun. Only Jianjun could have brought them here, and through thick and thin, he did. As he looked on, he realized that this was not only their leader; he’d follow Jianjun to the end of the earth. Jianjun was his leader now too.

Ying stood up, exhausted from the fighting. She walked towards the edge of the tree line and looked out at the town. The sun began to rise, and she realized that this would not only be the last time she looked at that town, but also the last time she followed that road which went through it. Jianjun erupted into a speech intended for the orphans, but she was hardly listening. She reached for her necklace one last time, feeling the crest of the scaled eagle one final time before yanking it and breaking the clasp. She held it in her hand and as she marveled at the splendor of dawn, she chucked the necklace into the distance.

As they began to march away Ho looked around for Ying. He spotted her by the edge of the woods and came to her side. Ying looked over her shoulder and saw him. She realized she had been standing for too long.

“I’m coming,” she said, “I’m just saying goodbye.”

She gazed into the town for a moment more before turning around and walked with Ho to join the others. They met Jianjun at the front and he looked over to her and asked, “Are you staying with us?”

“I am,” she said.

“I’m glad.” Jianjun smiled. “We shouldn’t let our guard down though. As long as the Fire Nation is in this area, we will never be completely safe.”

Ying was resolute when she heard this. Like a new door had opened for her just as the one she intended to walk through had closed.

“Then maybe we don’t have to,” she said. “The Fire Nation is confident that the whole world belongs to them, and wherever they go, they walk like it is their home, but it won’t be like that with us. We’ll elude them in the trees and fight them to keep it.”

As if she beamed the thought into his brain, Jianjun continued where she left off.

“We won’t wait to be assailed; instead, we will assail them at every turn. A band of guerillas in the hills, the woods, and the bushes. We raid anyone who steps foot into our forest and then we use the very weapons they brought to take the fight back to them. We’ll be Freedom Fighters.”

Then they turned to examine Ho, for his input. Ho furrowed his eyebrows as he was mulling over their proposal. Finally, he nodded to them. He seemed determined, as if their mission hadn’t ended.

“I guess since we are outlaws now,” Jianjun continued, “what we need now are outlaw names.”

“You already have one,” Ying said. “Jet, remember?”

“I don’t get to change it?”

“Nope.”

He looked at Ying. “What about yourself?”

Ying thought hard. She wasn’t as enraptured by the glory of being an outlaw or a bandit and thought mostly about what she saw on her journey to their town. She thought about meeting her new friends and the good times she had with them. Foremost, she remembered the day in the forest with Ho and she snapped her fingers as the answer occurred to her.

“Smellerbee,” she answered.

Then Smellerbee and Jet looked at Ho, but he simply shook his head and smiled at them.

“Fine,” Jet said, half disappointed. “If you won’t tell us, then we will make up one for you.”

“Longshot.” Smellerbee chimed.

Ho raised a single critical eyebrow at them, but Jet laughed and said, “Should have spoken up.”

They reached a clearing in the woods, and Longshot directed them to stop walking. Jet was puzzled and looked around for where he thought the camp was supposed to be.

“I don’t get it.” Jet said, finally. “Where is it supposed to be? Are we going to sleep on the dirt?”

Longshot pointed towards the sky before walking to one of his dangling ropes. He gave the rope a tug before flying up into the air. They watched him ascend and saw that he had a small hut in the trees. It only had enough living space for a single person. Jet realized they would indeed be sleeping on the dirt, but there was something else there, potential. In those trees he saw a hundred little huts where they could make their homes with bridges and pulleys and ropes for them to get around. “This is it,” he said. “They’ll never see us coming.” 


End file.
